Summary

Parable – First person, past tense / single stanza, blank verse. The speaker describes the experience of a group of travelers, debating over whether their journey should be identified as having a particular purpose. One side argues that a purpose is the kind of worldly experience the group is trying to leave behind; the other side argues that a purpose would give their journey focus and meaning. This, the speaker then says, is the first of many arguments that take years, commenting on how the members of the group have traveled in terms of age, but not in terms of any sort of physical journey. “And those who believed we should have a purpose,” the speaker says, “believed this was the purpose, and those who felt we must remain free / in order to encounter truth felt it had been revealed” (4).

An Adventure – First person, past tense...